How our project unfolded Understanding of the project:
Our understanding of the project was that we are being asked to create four sequential lesson plans for a desired year group on a topic of our choice. These lesson plans are for the students to actively participate in and solve the problems we have chosen. At the end of the lesson plans, there needs to be an overall objective or aim for the students to work towards such as a presentation at the school assembly. This project needs to be creative and interesting for the students to gain and maintain their focus over the entire four lessons. Over the time, ICT needs to be integrated in a fun and interactive way so that the students can learn in a positive and educative environment.
Inspiration Documents:
Here are the documents on the brainstorm of our ideas as well as the project management plan.
Project management plan:
ICT Tools used: The ICT tools used in our ICT integration project weren’t too in depth as we set our project for year 2’s, even though most students in this generation are more technologically advanced than our generation we felt that for the students to achieve to the best of their ability they shouldn’t be getting caught up in the technology and should focus more on the actual tasks that were being set. Sometimes the technology can overtake the learning which is not the purpose of integrating ICT, the purpose is to enhance student learning through the use of ICT and by using the tools we have used such a word, PowerPoint and comic life we feel that it gives the students the opportunity to explore a given topic at a different level rather that just reading and answering questions. We feel that using these simple forms of ICT gives the more hands-on students the chance to use their talents in a different way and also gives them a chance to excel in different areas.
The tools we chose to use were chosen as we knew that many students of this age level have grasped an understanding of these programs and wouldn’t have to figure out how to use them and could get straight into the project without wasting time trying to figure out how to use the technology. How this relates to Social Constructivist theory:
Constructivism is a mode of instruction that emphasises the active role of the learner in building understanding and making sense of instruction. This is exactly what this project is all about, the learner is given a series of tasks on a particular topic and also given a selection of tools to use in the process and it is then up to the student how they want to achieve the best possible outcome they can. It is problem based learning which is essentially the meaning of constructivism, this tasks encourages this as it gives students a goal to work towards and the students must solve the ‘problem’ over a period of time. Social constructivism also has a strong focus on collaborative learning among students and the teacher whereby all are actively engaged in addressing complex issues and resolving complex problems, this project insists that students work together as a group to help solve the problem, this in turn encourages the social side of constructivism and also helps to build and maintain a positive social environment within the classroom.
How our project unfolded
Understanding of the project:
Our understanding of the project was that we are being asked to create four sequential lesson plans for a desired year group on a topic of our choice. These lesson plans are for the students to actively participate in and solve the problems we have chosen. At the end of the lesson plans, there needs to be an overall objective or aim for the students to work towards such as a presentation at the school assembly. This project needs to be creative and interesting for the students to gain and maintain their focus over the entire four lessons. Over the time, ICT needs to be integrated in a fun and interactive way so that the students can learn in a positive and educative environment.
Inspiration Documents:
Here are the documents on the brainstorm of our ideas as well as the project management plan.
Project management plan:
Inspiration document:
Lesson plans:
These are the lesson plans for the four weeks. Rachel did lesson 1 and 2, Amy did lesson 3 and 4.
Lesson 1:
Lesson 2:
Lesson 3:
Lesson 4:
ICT Tools used:
The ICT tools used in our ICT integration project weren’t too in depth as we set our project for year 2’s, even though most students in this generation are more technologically advanced than our generation we felt that for the students to achieve to the best of their ability they shouldn’t be getting caught up in the technology and should focus more on the actual tasks that were being set. Sometimes the technology can overtake the learning which is not the purpose of integrating ICT, the purpose is to enhance student learning through the use of ICT and by using the tools we have used such a word, PowerPoint and comic life we feel that it gives the students the opportunity to explore a given topic at a different level rather that just reading and answering questions. We feel that using these simple forms of ICT gives the more hands-on students the chance to use their talents in a different way and also gives them a chance to excel in different areas.
The tools we chose to use were chosen as we knew that many students of this age level have grasped an understanding of these programs and wouldn’t have to figure out how to use them and could get straight into the project without wasting time trying to figure out how to use the technology.
How this relates to Social Constructivist theory:
Constructivism is a mode of instruction that emphasises the active role of the learner in building understanding and making sense of instruction. This is exactly what this project is all about, the learner is given a series of tasks on a particular topic and also given a selection of tools to use in the process and it is then up to the student how they want to achieve the best possible outcome they can. It is problem based learning which is essentially the meaning of constructivism, this tasks encourages this as it gives students a goal to work towards and the students must solve the ‘problem’ over a period of time. Social constructivism also has a strong focus on collaborative learning among students and the teacher whereby all are actively engaged in addressing complex issues and resolving complex problems, this project insists that students work together as a group to help solve the problem, this in turn encourages the social side of constructivism and also helps to build and maintain a positive social environment within the classroom.